The foot and speeder traffic around them was business as usual in the Blue Sector of Coronet, capital city of Corellia. The building itself wasn't much to look at, but at the moment it was all they had to go on.
Two days ago, Jedi Knights Nal Talla and Ataraxiav'a'lajean, or Val to his his friends, had arrived on Corellia in their respective fighters. Normally, long hyperspace flights were not possible in small snub-fighters due to hours, sometimes days, spent in hyperspace. Jedi however, were able to put themselves into a coma like meditation for hours at a time and pull themselves out of it again at a pre-determined time.
Once they had reached the Corellian System, they had immediately contacted CorSec and identified themselves and their mission. It took several hours to reach anyone who seemed to have the authority to authorize them to look into the "training accident" which had occurred just days before. CorSec was notorious for being very independent and they loathed any interference from the outside, either by they Republic, or the Jedi Order.
By time they had landed, and made their way to the Corellian Security Force Headquarters, they had finally received permission and the begrudging cooperation to look into the matter, and they got the feeling that if lightsabers had not been involved, that it would have taken direct intervention from the Jedi Council on Coruscant to obtain the access to the reports and files.
The two Jedi scanned hours of surveillance tapes from various businesses and strategically placed CorSec cameras, starting from the incident which had garnered the attention of the Jedi, and eventually pieced together the Sith's travels throughout the city.
They had been excited to learn that all four of the Sith they were after had been here, but why they had come to one of the Core Planets and risked alerting the authorities remained a mystery. This stop didn't seem like their usual tactics where they purposely gained the attention of local authorities and then hung out just long enough to let the Jedi verify their presence. No, they had attempted to conceal their whereabouts and if security footage was to be believed, they would have maintained that secrecy if it had not been for that Zeltronian female, who had seemed to pick a fight with them.
They had also tracked the Sith back to one of the spaceports, but several ships arrivals and departures coincided with the appearance of the Sith and while it narrowed down the possibilities of which ship might be theirs, none of the ships matched the description of the one the Jedi were most familiar with.
In fact, after looking at all the evidence, the only place of interest seemed to be this apartment complex of which they now stood in front.
A murder had taken place in one of the apartments, and the time of death coincided with the time a passing CorSec air speeder had passed overhead, placing all four Sith in front of the building. While the local law enforcement officials had no reason to believe the incidents were related, both Nal and Val were sure they were connected.
They entered the building and went to the apartment. Things had been pretty much as they had been found. CorSec had chalked the mess up to a home invasion, but the strangling of the victim was something that was bothering Nal. "Strangling is too personal. No, da person who did dis knew da victim."
"I'm inclined to agree with you, Nal," her blue-skinned counterpart said. "I know you can feel the residual Dark Side energy as I can."
"Yes," the Nataulan female agreed. "But why? Who was dis middle-aged human woman, and why did dey want her dead?"
"That is the question, indeed." The Chiss Jedi paused while he pulled out his data pad and called up the case files that he had downloaded. "The only interesting thing to note about this woman was that she had done a short stretch of time in a prison colony for manslaughter." They both already had looked into the files and knew the general details. Apparently the woman had killed her husband. Her defense was that he had abused his oldest step-daughter and the girl had run away and disappeared.
After that, the woman had supposedly sent her younger daughter away to keep it from happening again, but when that girl had gone missing as well, the mother had assumed the worst and taken her vengeance upon the man in the form a blaster bolt between the eyes while he was sleeping.
"Wait, what were da ages of dose girls when dat happened," Nal asked, and Val showed her the data pad. On a hunch, she pulled out her own data pad and entered the names of the two girls. Within a few moments she found what she was looking for: "Anya Tachi. It says here dat years ago she was tested by da Jedi, but refused entry to da Order due to age and lack of ability."
"That's interesting, but it makes sense. The Sith numbers are so depleted they are probably accepting anyone who shows the slightest aptitude with the Force," Val surmised. "Now you have two of the four names though: Raezyr, and Anya Tachi."
"Yes, but I'd gladly trade der names if I could only bring dem to justice for what dey did to Nylan," Nal replied. She could still see her Twi'lekki friend lying on the ground, dying and she remembered her own feeling of helplessness as the blue-armored Sith stood above her, ready to take her life as well.
Val sensed where his counterparts feelings were going and brought her back to the present. "Nal, I don't think there's anything more we can learn here on Corellia," the big blue Jedi said, resting his hand on her forearm.
"We should probably share what we know about this Tachi girl with CorSec, report to Master Taisun, and then see about getting back to the Unity. They should be nearly finished with their mission," Val said. The female Nautolan nodded her head in agreement.
Something was eating at Val, though. A tugging in the Force telling him they were missing something. Not something here in Coronet or even on this planet, but something... elsewhere.
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